News of the Week (June 6th, 2021)

Posted on June 6, 2021 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for June 6th, 2021


 

Riots & Revolution

 

March against murder: Portland has had more homicides so far this year than in all of 2019
Portland continues to be an object lesson in how not to deal with violent crime. After a year of nightly protests that often turned into riots or unlawful assemblies, you would think Portland had done all the consciousness-raising that was possible about the value of black lives. But as of Sunday, Portland has now had more homicides this year than it had in all of 2019 and most of the victims have been minorities.

Inside the not OK corral
Last week we had the “Shootout from George Floyd Square” broadcast live from Minneapolis. The video looks like a scene from a dark comedy. I think of it as the shootout at the not OK corral. It was in any event the perfect way to commemorate the anarchy and lawlessness Minneapolis has experienced in the year since George Floyd’s death.

BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Resigns, But The “Trained Marxist” Israel-Hater Is Poised To Be Even More Influential
As a video of her calling to “End Israel” on pain of “Doom” resurfaces, Cullors leaves BLM armed with contracts with massive enterntainment conglomerates and the tacit endorsement (not to mention funding) of Big Tech.

BLM chapter founder: Here’s “the ugly truth” that caused me to leave
The “ugly truth” to which Rashad Turner refers is that Black Lives Matter doesn’t actually care that much for improving black lives. Turner founded the St. Paul, Minnesota chapter of BLM and for a while acted as its main spokesperson. Back in 2015, for instance, Turner tried to spin the group’s threat to shut down the city’s marathon to further the cause of, er, racial justice. Turner refused to take questions from the Star Tribune, but instead released a quote from Martin Luther King about one of the greatest threats to black Americans as being whites who are “more devoted to order than justice.”

SC Rep. Nancy Mace’s home vandalized with Antifa symbols: ‘It’s such a violation of one’s privacy’
Republican’s Charleston home targeted over Memorial Day weekend

National Black Power Convention activist says a time to “kill everything white in sight” will soon come
A black rights activist at a weekend rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said that a time would come when black Americans would need to “kill everything white in sight.”

GOP Congresswoman’s Home Vandalized With Antifa Symbols on Memorial Day
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace’s home was vandalized with Antifa symbols and profanity on Memorial Day, the freshman congresswoman announced on Tuesday.

Angry Antifa Mob Surrounds Portland Hotel Believing Journalist Andy Ngo is Inside
“Protesters had previously tackled and punched the man, who fled to the hotel for safety.”

“Many are angry”: Minneapolis dismantles barricades in George Floyd Square; UPDATE: Reopened … for now?
What did it — the residents’ complaints, or the shooting at the anniversary of George Floyd’s death? The city of Minneapolis surprised some residents and angered others by dismantling the traffic barriers at 38th Street and Chicago that set up the de facto autonomous zone known as George Floyd Square. The work began before dawn, and KSTP’s Ashley Zilka reports that no one’s quite sure the extent to which the city will dismantle the memorial

Looting for Winston Smith or someone like him
Winston Smith is the protagonist of Orwell’s 1984. He is not to be confused with Winston Boogie Smith. According to CrimeWatchMpls, Winston Boogie Smith is the reported decedent in the police involved shooting at the top of the parking ramp adjacent to Calhoun Square in the heart of Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood.

Minneapolis Police Finally Remove Barricades From ‘George Floyd Square’
It was an eyesore in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. Concrete barricades had been set up as checkpoints where armed men controlled an “autonomous zone” — a place where police dared not enter. The intersection where George Floyd lost his life had become an independent territory. Visitors from around the world came to pay their respects and gawk. They left flowers and other memorabilia as a sign of respect.

Woke Police Ask for Help to ID Teen Who Lit Woman on Fire—But Blur His Face
San Francisco is more woke than a case of Red Bull, even when it involves a woman being set on fire. Police released a video of a teen setting fire to a woman’s hair on a bus and asked for the public’s help in identifying the victim and the perp, but blurred the faces of the personal arsonist and those of his friends, leaving us wondering: whose side are the cops on?

Fiery protests rage yet again in Minneapolis after cops fatally shoot armed fugitive
Angry protesters lit fires, looted stores and taunted cops in Minneapolis on Thursday after officers shot and killed a fugitive who whipped out a handgun when authorities closed in on him, police said.

LSU Hires Critical Race Scholar As President
Dr. William F. Tate IV, who becomes the first Black university president in the SEC, was not included in the initial list of eight semifinalists published by the special committee appointed to interview candidates for the position.

“Unrest” in Minneapolis after US Marshals shoot, kill armed murder suspect
Perhaps Minneapolis can adopt the dumpster fire as its new official symbol. “Unrest” in this case means vandalism and perhaps looting, touched off by law enforcement shooting a murder suspect who drew a gun on US Marshals. The incident took place yesterday afternoon, but by nightfall the inevitable knee-jerk Twin Cities reaction was well under way

Roosevelt University professors admit on hot mic to teaching social justice “all day, every day”
Two Roosevelt University professors boasted on a hot mic that they teach social justice ‘all day, every day.’ Both scholars have ties to public unions and secondary education.

 

Corona Virus

 

China limits travel in most populous province over Covid-19 cases
Chinese authorities imposed fresh travel limits, cancelled flights and tested thousands of residents in Guangdong Monday after the Indian variant of the coronavirus was reported in the country’s most populous province.

Bird flu outbreak fears in China as first human case of H10N3 confirmed
CHINA has confirmed the world’s first human case of the H10N3 bird flu. A 41-year-old man, from the eastern city of Zhenjiang, developed a fever and other symptoms and was hospitalised on April 28, according to China’s National Health Commission.

Report: DeSantis may cave on banning cruise lines from requiring proof of vaccination
I hope he does cave. Requiring cruise lines, of all businesses, to accept unvaccinated passengers who might end up infected when they’re out at sea and miles away from any hospital is pure idiocy, as I said last week. He might spare himself a legal humiliation by caving too. A maritime lawyer told Forbes recently that DeSantis’s claim that Florida can override the CDC’s health requirements for a cruise is “political buffoonery.” The feds, not the states, regulate cruise lines. If the CDC wants to require proof of vaccination for passengers, they should have that authority.

If the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis is true, expect a political earthquake
There was a time when the Covid pandemic seemed to confirm so many of our assumptions. It cast down the people we regarded as villains. It raised up those we thought were heroes. It prospered people who could shift easily to working from home even as it problematized the lives of those Trump voters living in the old economy.

West Virginia offering guns as prizes in COVID vaccine lottery
They have the right, and some incentive, to bare arms!

Washington Post Retroactively Edits 15-Month-Old Piece That Bashed Tom Cotton on Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
Now that the media is suddenly treating the Wuhan lab leak theory as plausible, news outlets like the WaPo have taken to doing edits on their earlier articles to make themselves sound less skeptical than they originally did.

Lab-Leak Bombshells Drop: Death Threats, “Cover-Up,” and More
On the menu today: Two huge stories — Vanity Fair finds evidence that some figures within the U.S. State Department did not want a complete investigation into the virus’s origins in early 2020; and what you need to know about that other new virus discovered in China.

First cases of black fungus from Indian COVID variant found outside country
Fears have been sparked after cases of deadly black fungus from the Indian COVID variant have been found outside India.

Former head of British intelligence on lab leak: ‘a lot of data has probably been destroyed’
Last year the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence services said it was a mistake to treat the lab leak theory of the origin of the coronavirus as a conspiracy theory. Sir Richard Dearlove, who ran the agency from 1994 to 2004, made headlines in July of 2020 for saying he believed a lab leak was probable and needed to be discussed.

71% of Democrats Say Healthy Americans Should Still Stay Home as Much as Possible
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, a majority of Americans believe that healthy people should return to normal rather than stay home. But according to Gallup, the most stubborn group remains Democrats, with 71 percent saying that people should try to stay home even if they are healthy.

Has the Lab Leak Hypothesis Been Proved?
Senator Tom Cotton and others were excoriated for suggesting that the possibility that the Wuhan virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology should be investigated. Not only have such suggestions been denounced, until last week, Facebook did not even allow the idea that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory to be discussed.

 

Gun Rights

 

Biden’s ATF Nominee Amplifies Concerns About Stance on Second Amendment
When President Joe Biden released his plan in February to tackle gun violence, he also announced the nomination of David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF.

Second Amendment Denounced as Racist
That which leftists aim to destroy, they pretend is “racist.” Our fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed right of self-defense is in their crosshairs.

Federal Judge Strikes Down California’s “Unconstitutional” Assault Weapons Ban, Torches Media
A federal judge in the Southern District of California ruled late on Friday that California’s controversial “assault weapons” ban is unconstitutional.

Florida Court Rejects Firearms Restriction in Temporary Anti-Stalking Injunction
From Dean v. Bevis, decided today by the Florida Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Judge Morris Silberman, joined by Judges Diego Casanueva & Robert Morris

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Why the Doomsayers Have the Upper Hand
In 1980, the Council on Environmental Quality, part of the Executive Office of the President, released the Global 2000 report. During the 1970s, the consensus among many scientists was that population growth was a bad thing (and China listened to them), and the Council’s report to President Carter reflected that consensus.

Where Has All the Global Warming Gone?
The covid epidemic has had several silver linings, one of which is that we haven’t heard so much about global warming lately. It is hard to sustain multiple hysterias at the same time, apparently.

Notley announces plans to move Alberta’s electricity grid to net-zero by 2035 if elected
Ahead of the NDP’s weekend convention, Alberta’s Opposition leader has committed to transforming the province’s energy sector and moving the province’s electricity grid to net-zero by 2035 should an orange crush wash over Alberta in the next election.

Oil and Gas CEO Calls Out North Face’s “Crazy Hypocrisy” By Highlighting Its Reliance on Fossil Fuels
“North Face is not only an extraordinary customer of the oil and gas industry, they’re also a partner with the oil and gas industry.”

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Florida Hospital Sues to End Ill Nurse’s Life
“Futile care” — the forced removal by doctors and hospital bioethics committees of wanted life-extending treatment over patient and family objections — is, alas, still the law of Texas. And now a hospital in Florida has sued for the right to do the same thing to Genea Bristol, age 41.

What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth?
Whole areas of research are off-limits. Top physicians treat patients based on their race. An ideological ‘purge’ is underway in American medicine.

Doctors warn ‘Wokeness feels like an existential threat’ to medicine
Earlier today Bari Weiss published the first in a series of stories about the spread of woke ideology in the field of medicine. The piece was written by reporter Katie Herzog who co-hosts a podcast with Jesse Singal, another critic of cancel culture. The piece opens exactly the way some previous pieces on this topic have opened, with a group of about a dozen people who meet regularly on Zoom to discuss what they see happening in their own workplaces. The only difference is that these people are doctors.

 

War & Terror

 

U.S. monitoring Iranian warships that may be headed to Venezuela
Tehran’s intent in sending the vessels in the direction of the Western Hemisphere remains a mystery, as does their cargo.

One-Fifth of U.S. Beef Capacity Wiped Out by JBS Cyberattack
A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of some of world’s largest slaughterhouses, and there are signs that closures are spreading.

The Hackers Come for Our Beef
On the menu today: The hackers come for our beef; Joe Biden is disappointing the folks who thought he would be tough against Vladimir Putin; a look at what your support of NR enables; and the contrast between how progressives talk about China and how they talk about Israel.

China’s Belt and Road Being Built with Forced Labor
Almost all the workers had been deceptively recruited with promises of certain wages and legal work visas. Instead, their passports were confiscated right after they disembarked the plane, leaving them unable to leave unless they paid a heavy fine to the Chinese employer…. They were locked up in poor living and working conditions on the work premises, which were guarded by security guards…. They suffered excessive work hours of up to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week with no holiday allowance… Many workers were injured during work with no access to medical treatment…. After a worker from a Chinese mining company in Indonesia was diagnosed positive for Covid-19 in November 2020, he was put in isolation in an empty dormitory room for more than 20 days without any medical treatment. Later other workers found his dead body.

Iran’s largest warship mysteriously explodes, sinks; UPDATE: Large refinery fire erupts near Tehran
“Unclear circumstances.” That’s the word from quasi-official Iranian news agencies about the sinking of the Kharg, their largest warship while on patrol in the Gulf of Oman. Initial reports are sketchy, but there appears to have been an explosion in the engine room

Huawei ex-director on trial in Poland on China spying charge
Two men accused of spying for China went on trial Tuesday in Warsaw — a Chinese citizen who is a former sales director of Huawei in Poland and a Polish cybersecurity expert.

Our Faith and Perseverance Will Never Change: On the 32nd Anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre by the Tiananmen Mothers
On June 4, 1989, in a time of peace, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the leadership and command of the ruling authorities, sent tanks, armored vehicles, and soldiers with live ammunition onto the ten-mile Chang’an Avenue in Beijing. Without restraint or scruples, they shot and crushed unarmed students and citizens, and even destroyed the bodies to cover up their crimes. As a result, some of the victims’ families have heard nothing about their loved ones after they left home, not knowing if they were dead or alive, as if they had vanished from the face of the earth.

Uyghur exiles describe forced abortions, torture in Xinjiang
Three Uyghurs who fled from China to Turkey have described forced abortions and torture by Chinese authorities in China’s far western Xinjiang region, ahead of giving testimony to a people’s tribunal in London that is investigating if Beijing’s actions against ethnic Uyghurs amount to genocide.

Why was the Chinese military engineering mice with “humanized” lungs in the summer of 2019?
Ed grabbed the big takeaway from the splashy new Vanity Fair piece this morning, that federal efforts to investigate the lab-leak theory were hamstrung by numerous conflicts of interest within the public-health bureaucracy.

The World’s Most Powerful Authoritarian Government Just Can’t Find an Infected Pangolin, Huh?
Back on July 2020, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist Shi Zhengli, famously nicknamed “Bat Woman” for the focus of her research, offered written answers to submitted questions from Science magazine.

China Doesn’t Want Anyone to Talk About ‘Tank Man,’ Which Is Why We Must
Hong Kong has banned any commemoration of the Tiananmen Square uprising for the second successive year. The city-state that was once a beacon of freedom for the Chinese has been fully subsumed by the brutal communist state.

China State Media: Country Must Prepare for Nuclear War With U.S. After Biden Pushes COVID Probe
Meanwhile, China downplays first human case of H10N3 Bird Flu.

The Uninhibited Cruelty of the Chinese Communist Party
The anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre is an opportunity to reflect on the Chinese Communist Party’s wanton cruelty and the ever-present danger to anyone that stands in its way. This is something that Chinese democrats, Hong Kongers, and the people of Taiwan know well: Given the chance and a reason to do so, Beijing has shown that it has few qualms about using indiscriminate violence to achieve its political ends.

In China, Tiananmen Is Not Forgotten
A few years ago, I found myself in the People’s Republic of China helping run a model United Nations conference through a collegiate club. At the time I was vaguely aware of all that was wrong with the regime there — and was ill-advisedly tweeting about a crackdown in Hong Kong while on Chinese soil — but hadn’t studied the issue the way I probably should have.

TikTok just gave itself permission to collect biometric data on US users, including “faceprints and voiceprints”
A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began.

Report: High level Chinese defector has information on special weapons programs
Our sister site Red State published a story this afternoon which says the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has been talking with a high level Chinese defector for several months. The sources for this story are anonymous but they claim this individual is one of the highest level defectors ever to leave China.

Nevada passes law that bans racially discriminatory school mascots and ‘sundown sirens’
The state of Nevada is banning “racially discriminatory” school mascots after legislation was signed into law on Friday, as well as banning town sirens historically used to discriminate.

 

National

 

Princeton drops Greek and Latin requirement for Classics majors
Using race-based preferences to admit students with qualifications vastly inferior to those admitted without the need for such preferences creates all sorts of problems and dislocations. One of them is the erosion of standards within various departments, especially ones that teach hard stuff. I wrote about one example — eliminating econometrics as a required course for graduating from a major school of public policy — here.

Baltimore Schools Will Not Hold Back “Tens of Thousands” Of Students Who Failed This Year
The district said that “[A]bout 65% of secondary students and 50% of elementary students in the system are failing at least one class.”

Dalton parents enraged over “masturbation” videos for first-graders
Last fall, parents at the posh, $55,000-per-year Dalton School got wind of their first-graders being taught sex education lessons that included masturbation.

How race preferences damage higher education
I want to second Steve’s praise for A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education, the fine new essay collection edited by Gail Heriot and Maimon Schwarzschild. The contributors include the two editors, Heather Mac Donald, Peter Kirsanow, and Peter Wood.

Relevant Classic Texts
A lot of the supercharged racism uber alles ideology we’re seeing right now under the general banner of “critical race theory” is not new. Most accounts place its origins in the late 1980s or 1990s, but in fact it is possible to make out the essential dynamic back in the 1960s.

Va. School District Suspends PE Teacher Who Opposed Transgender Policy. Now, He’s Fighting Back
Last week, a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary in Leesburg, Va., dared to speak out against a policy that would require teachers to endorse transgender identity by using female pronouns to refer to male students and vice versa. Less than two days later, the school suspended him pending an investigation and forbade him from setting foot on school property without special permission. A Christian law firm has taken up his case and the situation has sparked a new feud between a local pastor and the local Democratic Party.

Turley: Supreme Court May Be Sending a Stealth Message to Democrats
Legal analyst Jonathan Turley thinks the United States Supreme Court is sending a message to the Democrats about their not-so-secret plans to pack the court—and I think his theory has merit.

DeSantis Signs Bill to Ban Transgender Females From Female Sports
DeSantis declared: “We’re gonna go based off biology, not based off ideology when we’re doing sports.”

Courts rule against race-based restaurant relief distribution
When the American Rescue Plan Act was passed, it contained a special program to help restaurant owners who had been placed in financial peril by the government-mandated COVID shutdowns. Administered through the Small Business Administration, the program is known as the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF). The RFF offered grants and forgivable loans to the owners of eateries who fell into that category. But the way the SBA under the Biden administration planned to roll it out contained a poison pill for many owners. Anyone could apply for the program, but businesses owned by women and minorities would be placed in a priority queue to receive relief first. In other words, if you happened to be a white, male restaurant owner, you were sent to the back of the line to hope that the fund wouldn’t be dried up by the time your turn came.

Willful blindness about America’s violent crime wave
The wave of violent crime in America is so pronounced that the mainstream media can’t help but report it. But that doesn’t mean the media must mention some obvious reasons why the nation might be experiencing the surge of violence.

Louisiana Teacher: Why I Spoke Out Against Pushing Gender Ideology
Louisiana high school teacher Jonathan Koeppel spoke out recently against the gender identity ideology being promoted at his school. A video of his remarks at a school board meeting quickly went viral.

Biden Will Nominate LA Mayor Eric Garcetti as Ambassador to India
Pray for India.

Man-monkey hybrid sparks fears of ‘Frankenstein’ creatures
Researchers conducting human-animal hybrid experiments struck fear into federal lawmakers worried that nightmare scenarios of Frankenstein creatures have become reality.

Biden: Black entrepreneurs don’t have lawyers or accountants, you know
They don’t? That seems like an odd claim, given how many black attorneys and black accountants we have in the US. As so often happens when Joe Biden strives to pander, he ends up sounding patronizing and downright offensive instead, as he did in this strange claim yesterday

Crime wave sparks secession movement in Atlanta
Buckhead is a well-to-do district in Atlanta with around 86,000 residents. It has not been exempt from Atlanta’s crime wave (homicides in Atlanta are up 59 percent from this time last year, when the city ended up with its highest total in two decades). One new Buckhead resident was victimized by break-ins to her vehicles twice within a period of a few weeks. Then, there was a shootout on her street.

About those interracial couples in TV ads
Apparently, like many old Americans, Biden is watching lots of television. I am too (almost exclusively sports), and noticed the same thing. In fact, I was thinking of writing about it.

Students reject Critical Race Theory after learning what it’s really about
Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson went to George Washington University to ask if students knew what Critical Race Theory (CRT) was and if they agreed with some of the basic principles derived from CRT.

The New Book Burners
Halifax’s public library is standing firm in support of free speech as an activist group tries to get Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” removed from library shelves. True North’s Andrew Lawton says the library is making the right call, noting that woke activists aren’t used to anyone telling them “No”.

NASA plans two future visits to Venus
It has been 30 years since NASA sent a mission to Venus. Today they announced they would be sending two, one designed to map the surface and a second designed to study the atmosphere.

Texas Bars Protest Civics and CRT
The Texas legislature has just passed House Bill 3979, a landmark education bill. It is the first law in the country barring not only the core concepts of Critical Race Theory (CRT) from K–12 schools, but “protest civics” as well. The practice of protest civics — mandatory student protests and lobbying after school (invariably for leftist causes) — is every bit as much a threat to K–12 schools as CRT. Even if every state legislature in the country were to bar CRT, the federal civics bills being considered right now in Congress could still force leftist indoctrination on the states via protest civics. That is why the passage of Texas H.B. 3979 is so important.

“How Southlake, Texas, Won Its Battle against Critical Race Theory”
On the home page today, I have a big piece on how Southlake, Texas, won its fight over the schools, which should be used as a model all over the country

Make a Wish CEO admits stealing funds from dying kids
A one-time CEO for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Iowa has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $40,000 in purchases on her corporate credit card.

Researchers want Americans to eat 90% less beef, conform with Paris Agreement
A University of Michigan study advocated drastic reductions in meat consumption to help the Biden administration meet the Paris Agreement goals. The scholars promote plant-based alternatives in Americans’ diets.

Does Trump think he will be reinstated as president?
I don’ credit anything the mainstream media writes about Donald Trump. In most cases, I don’t assume what organs like the New York Times and the Washington Post say about the former is president is false — i.e., that it is “fake news.” But neither do I assume it’s true.

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Reminds Us That Some “Big Lies” Are More Equal Than Others
McAuliffe falsely smeared his GOP opponent for not accepting the 2020 outcome, but has repeatedly claimed that Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election.

Report: Some Trump allies think DeSantis will run in 2024 — even if Trump does
It’s so hard to imagine any Republican taking this political risk. But I can sort of talk myself into believing it in DeSantis’s case.

The Problems with a New Proposal for High-Speed Rail in New England
Politico’s Sam Mintz reports that “22 members of Congress from the Northeast are asking for federal funding for a new entity they’re calling the North Atlantic Rail Corporation (NARC) to build a $105 billion high-speed rail system connecting New York and New England.”

Texas GOP chairman Allen West resigns, considers challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 primary
Former Florida congressman, who toppled previous GOP chair just 11 months ago, also eyes Allred’s U.S. House.

‘The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’
A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale’s Child Study Center spoke about ‘unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.’

Yale hosted a lecture on the ‘Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’
Yesterday I wrote Katie Herzog’s piece (published on Bari Weiss’ Substack) about a group of doctors who meet regularly to discuss the ways in which woke ideology is seeping into medicine. Today, Herzog has a follow up about a lecture which Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center hosted in April. The talk featured a New York psychiatrist named Aruna Khilanani. Her public lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problems of the White Mind.”

Three U.S. senators to visit Taiwan, trip likely to irritate China
Three U.S. senators will visit Taiwan on Sunday and will meet President Tsai Ing-wen to discuss security and other issues, Taiwan’s government and the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said on Saturday, a trip that will likely irritate China.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
A Social Security screw-up, prolonged detentions, and greasing the wheels of justice.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

“Silicon Six” tech giants accused of inflating tax payments by almost $100bn
The giant US tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of inflating their stated tax payments by almost $100bn (£70bn) over the past decade.

How the World Ran Out of Everything
In the story of how the modern world was constructed, Toyota stands out as the mastermind of a monumental advance in industrial efficiency. The Japanese automaker pioneered so-called Just In Time manufacturing, in which parts are delivered to factories right as they are required, minimizing the need to stockpile them.

One way companies are concealing higher prices: Smaller packages
Consumers are paying more for a growing range of household staples in ways that don’t show up on receipts – thinner rolls, lighter bags, smaller cans – as companies look to offset rising labor and materials costs without scaring off customers.

Global Food Prices Surge to Near Decade High, UN Says
Global food prices extended their rally to the highest in almost a decade, heightening concerns over bulging grocery bills as economies struggle to exit the Covid-19 crisis.

Forget Companies—the Global Taxman Wants the Middle Class
Big-spending politicians will have to go where the money is—in citizens’ purses and wallets.

The Lackluster Recovery
As you may recall, the April 2021 jobs report was a huge disappointment. Experts had expected about a million jobs, but the real number was a little over one-quarter of that.

Workers Aren’t Coming Back
One of the two most significant statistics from this morning’s jobs report: Workers aren’t coming back.

Why are there still so many help wanted signs?
When the jobs report came out on Friday, the numbers weren’t as bad as they were for April, but the best description you could honestly apply to them was “lackluster.” The number of jobs added (559K) was basically double the number we saw from the previous month, but still well short of expectations. This trend once again left some economists scratching their heads, along with much of the general public. Pandemic restrictions are being lifted on a daily basis, with many states already fully reopened for business. Employers are scrambling to either convince the workers they let go to come back or find new people to hire. So why is the number of new hires remaining below expectations? Shouldn’t the economy be booming by now? The polite answer from the mainstream media seems to be… it’s complicated.

 

International

 

Deadly “Black Fungus” Disease Infects Over 12,000 in India
A top surgeon said, “the disease, also known as ‘black fungus’, can infect people who have been treated with oxygen for the coronavirus.”

Italian Artist Sells Invisible Sculpture For Real Money
Salvatore Garau has sold his latest invisible sculpture. The work, titled “I Am,” doesn’t exist except in the artist’s imagination. The buyer gets a stamped certificate in exchange for $18,000.

In tit-for-tat move, Germany blocks Russian airlines
Germany has denied Russian airlines permission to use its airspace after Moscow failed to approve a Lufthansa flight to Russia, German officials said Wednesday.

Democracy and Economic Freedom Are at Stake in Mexican Elections
This weekend’s midterm elections on June 6 in Mexico could inflict additional damage on economic freedom and democracy there.

Taiwan’s Lessons from the Belarus Skyjacking
Taiwan apparently took the right message from Belarus’s interception of a passenger flight between two EU member states: Not even civilian aircraft passing through the airspace of countries ruled by authoritarian regimes are safe from political interference.

English fans boo kneeling English footballers
For almost a year now, soccer players in England have been kneeling just before kickoff to show support for Black Lives Matter. During almost all of this period, English fans weren’t present for the matches. Thus, we had no sense of how they felt about this gesture.

China’s Advanced ‘Artificial Sun’ Fusion Reactor Just Broke a New World Record
China has achieved a new milestone in humanity’s experiments to harness the power of the stars.

 

Opinion

 

I’m A Mom Seeking Records Of Critical Race and Gender Curriculum, Now The School Committee May Sue To Stop Me
On June 2, 2021, the South Kingstown (RI) School Committee will hold a public hearing on suing me because I submitted a lot of public records requests to get answers to my questions which the School District would not answer.

Believing Marriage Is between a Man and a Woman Is Not Hate
As I was writing earlier about the Fulton case, I was receiving emails about my hatred for gay people, hating them so much that I’ll put children’s lives in danger. I certainly hope I don’t hate anyone. We are all on this earth with the struggle of being humans. We all have challenges, and I want to encourage other, not condemn them. At the same time, we live in a country that was founded on principles of freedom — religious freedom chief among them. You are free to believe in God, to not believe in God, to believe in lots of things. And it’s not outlandish — or hateful — to say that a Catholic agency has the right to operate as its conscience dictates.

The Fulton Case at the Supreme Court Is Not about Gay Rights, It Is about Vulnerable Children
Welcome to June. If you live in New York, there’s no way to forget it’s Pride month now. Turn the block to NR’s headquarters off Fifth Avenue, and you learn that purchasing apparently has to do with declaring your views on same-sex marriage. But it’s not about having an opinion anymore, it’s about submitting. Because we don’t seem to believe in pluralism anymore.

How Dems Will Push Protest Civics and CRT on Schools
The national rebellion against Critical Race Theory, leftist indoctrination, and enforced political activism in our schools grows larger every day. Sadly, the current assault on K-12 is but a foretaste of what is to come. President Biden and congressional Democrats are pulling out the stops to force Critical Race Theory (CRT) and “action civics” (better called “protest civics,” because it trains students to be leftist protesters) onto every school in the country.

Andrew Sullivan: Critical Race Theory a ‘potent threat to liberal civilization’
Last Friday Andrew Sullivan published a piece on Substack about Critical Race Theory. This piece is really an attempt to summarize what CRT is in the most fundamental sense. As Sullivan describes it, CRT isn’t just a new wave of social justice reform that seeks to expand what gets covered in textbooks, but an ideology that is at base hostile to liberalism, i.e. the philosophy of individualism, democracy, free enterprise, etc.

How Much of Biden’s Agenda Can the Democrats Pass Alone?
Ultimately, the answer is “whatever Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will go along with.” But procedurally, an option some Democrats once found promising just got much trickier.

Is Higher Education Opening Student Minds, or Shutting Them?
Most colleges and universities say something about how they expand a student’s intellectual horizons, but do they?

Are the Supreme Court’s unanimous decisions a message and if so what are they saying?
The calls for Justice Breyer to resign from the Supreme Court to ensure that Democrats are able to replace him with a suitably progressive judge continue to appear every day or so. The latest, published yesterday by the Nation, was titled “It’s Time for Stephen Breyer to Retire From the Supreme Court.”

What “Settler Colonialism” Is About
About six or seven years ago, while I was researching radical feminism, I began encountering the phrase “settler colonialism,” e.g., “Why Racial Justice Work Needs to Address Settler Colonialism and Native Rights,” a 2015 article at Everyday Feminism by Rachel Kuo.

Trump Lost
That’s right. I said it.

Maggie Haberman Is Right
Donald Trump really does believe that he, along with two former GOP senators, will be “reinstated” to office this summer.

Hegel, Wokeness, and the Dialectical Faith of Leftism
Is Critical Race Theory Marxist, as many insist, or is it not? What is the relationship between Marxism, neo-Marxism (Critical Theory), and Wokeness? All three criticize one another, and yet all three have a great deal obviously in common. Is there some common underlying thread between these clearly similar yet obviously different worldviews? The answer is yes, and by tracing back to one of the most influential speculative idealist philosophers of the early 19th century, namely George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, we can gain a great deal of insight into how these decidedly leftist movements—the Marxist Old Left, the neo-Marxist New Left, and the intersectional Woke Left—share at least one deeper philosophical architecture in common. From Hegel, the Left since his time has, wittingly and not, adopted several of the pillars of Hegelian philosophy, these including his statism, historicism, and, much more importantly, his dialectical approach and metaphysical worldview. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay takes a long, deep dive into the ways that Hegel’s philosophy is at the root of the entire “Dialectical Left” since, naming the dialectic the “operating system” of all activist Leftism since the early 1800s.

This Presidential Speech on Race Shocked the Nation…in 1921
Ninety-five years ago today, Warren G. Harding traveled deep into the heart of Klan country and delivered a sermon on civil rights that was decades ahead of its time.

Senate senility
The Washington Post reports that the current U.S. Senate is the oldest in American history. Dianne Feinstein turns 88 this month. Charles Grassley turns 88 in September.

Defending American Institutions Requires Happy Warriors
As you have probably seen around the website this past week, we have been highlighting the brilliant work of Jim Geraghty and other writers who fearlessly reported the facts on hand without regard to the cultural zeitgeist. Most notably, Jim drew attention to the plausibility of the Wuhan lab-leak theory.

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